Local entrepreneurs have been quick to cash in on the interest, knocking out pyramid-themed souvenirs, including clocks, slippers, and T-shirts.

One pizza parlor now serves triangular pies on triangular platters. And a local hotel recently changed its name to the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Motel.

Supporters say the dig is a spade of positive news in the once war-torn country, which endured a brutal four-year civil conflict in the 1990s.

In an email, Bosnian Meho said he was "amazed with a finding [of] pyramids, like many others Bosnians."

"This is [the] first positive thing, and so many of us now [are] getting together [for the] first time after the war, because we [have] got something positive to talk about."

Osmanagic echoes the sentiment: "Finally we have something so positive happening in this little, tiny, ruined country of Bosnia."

Professional Outcry

While he concedes that the notion of such colossal structures in the region defies accepted history, Osmanagic is adamant that the pyramids are real.

But a pantheon of archaeologists disagrees.

Prominent Bosnian archaeologists entered the scrum early on, denouncing the dig and lobbying to shut it down.

Anthony Harding, president of the Czech Republic-based European Association of Archaeologists, has dismissed Osmanagic's ideas as "wacky" and "absurd."

Garrett Fagan, of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has slammed the project. He says that the dig will destroy bona fide archaeological sites in the area.

He recently told the London Times newspaper: "It's as if someone were given permission to bulldoze Stonehenge to find secret chambers of lost ancient wisdom underneath."

Experts shovel some of their scorn on the media, which have been trumpeting Osmanagic's astounding announcements in recent weeks.

Many news Web sites, including the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, MSNBC, and ABC, ran a credulous Associated Press story dated April 19 that carried the headline, "Experts Find Evidence of Bosnia Pyramid."

In response, the executive editor of New York-based Archaeology magazine, Mark Rose, blasted Osmanagic as a quack and the press as gullible.

To emphasize his case, Rose quoted from online excerpts of a 2005 book by Osmanagic about the Maya.

Passages from the book suggest the Maya descended from the people of the mythical city of Atlantis, who themselves are aliens who came to Earth from the Pleiades star cluster.

Osmanagic counters that the material was misrepresented and was not his theory, but an interpretation of a Maya codex, or ancient book.

In general, the Bosnian-American dismisses Rose and other critics. Reported to have the Bosnian government's support, he plans to press on with this year's six-month excavation.

"I understand that the archaeologists would be the last ones to accept the fact that thousands of years back we did have advanced civilization in this region," he said.

Osmanagic remains confident his team will unearth sufficient proof to back that claim.

Given the level of professional skepticism, it will be a tough sell.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," said Curtis Runnels, an archaeologist at Boston University in Massachusetts and a Balkan prehistory expert.

He says the known Upper Paleolithic peoples in the region were lucky if they could build tents and fires. Monumental architecture on a scale not even seen in Egypt would be a cosmic leap forward.

"It is not up to professional archaeologists to explain 200 years of research and evidence," Runnels said. "It is up to Mr. Osmanagic to prove his claims."